#高塔藏書庫第四期#
- 個人翻譯，供學習討論
- 歡迎命學愛好者多多交流
- 不是翻譯專業，純粹愛好，水平有限請見諒
- 會在文末附上原文
Introduction
介紹
人們總說沒有什麼是永恆的。
無論你認為自己有多強大，總有一些力量在他們自己的追求中，甚至不會考慮你在努力堅強不被遺忘。
每當一個偉大的社會曾經崛起，就有一千個文明墮落，被時間的巨口吞噬而遺忘。
但在這些破碎的遺蹟裡，新的花園生長，播種在鮮血和摧毀殆盡偉大戰爭的故事中。
如果你仔細觀察——充分尊重歷史——你會發現沒有什麼東西會完全消亡。
能量轉變，名字改變，但故事不變。時間鏈是無限的，遠遠超出我們微薄的理解力。
每一個環節都有教訓——它們變成了神話和傳說，形成了一個圈，在這個圈中，真正的意義往往被正義的主張所丟失。然後，他們把自己對真理的要求凌駕於他人之上，就像真理一直是他們的一樣。
它們的故事揭示了我們如何對抗毀滅的警示，如何在敵人之間找到聯盟的過程，或者教導你如何在兩個不在乎任何形式主張的大國之間平衡你的存在。
不管他們怎麼稱呼自己，或者別人怎麼稱呼他們，我們永遠是一樣的，不管是好是壞——直到一個新的神升起，另一個王國降臨。
來自
一位無光者，永遠為最後一位敢於說出不可言喻的人服務
Prologue
序言
The Golden Age
黃金時代
旅行者改變了一切。它決然地重塑了我們的太陽系，就像它粉碎了我們的科學和哲學框架一樣。對我們的前人來說，這一定是一記重擊——一瞥超越預期可能性的地平線，進入了一種超然力量的領域。
旅行者點燃了黃金時代。但是黃金時代是我們親手建起的。我們自豪地銘記這一點，即使之後失去了這麼多其他的東西。我們安頓了我們的太陽系，並用我們的努力修繕家園。
今天，隱士和學者們致力於將黃金時代的傳說提煉為真理。我們知道人類活得更長，飄流的更遠，知道得更多。
我們知道，無數古老的疾病和仇恨被永遠撲滅了。人類的渴望催生了巨大的工程項目，席捲社會的運動，甚至新的生活形式。
黃金時代並非沒有挑戰。問題來源涉及到了內部衝突、哲學裂痕——特別是圍繞機器智能和“思維分叉”的問題——以及持久的科學謎團。但是人類和它的機械孩子們用驕傲、活力和富有感染力的多元同情心來解決這些問題。
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原文：
Introduction
They say nothing lasts forever.
That no matter how strong you think you are, there are forces in their own pursuit that won't even regard your effort to steel yourself against oblivion.
That for every great society that has ever risen, another thousand have fallen, swallowed and forgotten by the great maw of time.
But in those shattered remains, new gardens grow, sown across the blood and stories great wars were fought to destroy.
If you look closely—and honor history well enough--you'll see that nothing ever dies... completely.
The energy alters form, the names change, but the story remains the same. The chain is infinite, far beyond our meager comprehension.
There are lessons in every link—they morph into myths, legends, forming a circle where true meaning is too often lost to a claim of righteousness. Then they hold their claim to truth over others, like it was theirs all along.
They offer cautionary tales of how to stand against destruction, processes of how to find alliances among enemies, or teachings of how to balance your existence between two powers that care nothing about claims of any kind.
Whatever they call themselves, or others choose to call them, we are forever one, for better or worse—until a new god rises and another kingdom comes.
From,
A Lightless One, Forever in Service to the Last Speaker, Who Dared to Speak the Ineffable
Prologue
The Golden Age
The Traveler changed everything. It reshaped our solar system as decisively as it shattered our scientific and philosophical frameworks. To our ancestors it must have been a hammerblow--a glimpse beyond the horizon of expected possibility and into a realm of transcendent power.
The Traveler kindled the Golden Age. But we built it. We remember this with pride, even after so much else has been lost. We settled our solar system and filled it with our work.
Today Cryptarchs and scholars work to distill the legends of the Golden Age into truth. We know that humans lived longer, flew further, and knew more.
We know that countless ancient diseases and hatreds were extinguished forever. Human aspiration gives birth to vast engineering projects, sweeping social movements, and even new forms of life.
The Golden Age was not without challenges. Sources speak of internal strife, philosophical rifts- particularly around questions of machine intelligence and 'mind forking' —and enduring scientific enigmas. But humanity and its machine children tackled these problems with pride, vigor, and a contagious sense of pluralist compassion.